KB FED CUP, FINAL ROUND

October 4, 1997

Yannick Noah

Q. Mr. Noah, in the first match there were two women on the court, obviously, being very nervous. What did you say or what did you do to make your player feel comfortable; give herself confidence?

CAPTAIN NOAH: Well, it was an important game. I believe it was more important for the Dutch team than it was for us because we knew that for Holland to win this Tie, they really counted on this first point. And, yes, to play the Finals, it is the first time they played the Finals. The first game, they feel the energy around the court and, of course, there is a lot of tension. So, all these matches, it is always a matter about how you control your nerves and I believe that Sandrine started out very well. Brenda was tense. And, then as the game went on, it seemed that Sandrine was getting tense herself and Brenda was starting to be more comfortable within the game. I am really happy about the way that Sandrine reacted when she was on the way down. She played these two games at 3-2 that were great games in terms of her attitude and the way she dealt with this particular situation. And, this is when she won the match, when she won this game at 3-2. And, that was great. That was really great. She went out on the court at 3-2 thinking: "Now it is time; I am going to take it." And, she took it. I think that was great.

CAPTAIN NOAH: We have played the first round in Japan where we had to sit for like seven hours the first day with many tiebreaks, saving some matches points; second day very, very hard. Then in the semifinal we had a lot of very, very tough matches, really close. So, I would -- I felt that my players made it easy for me. They made it easy in a way that I didn't have to dig so deep inside to find the right words. They really delivered themselves. So, my job today was fairly easy. It was tough on the players. They did what they had to do. That makes my job easy.